Chapter 36
DANIEL
Finn was all nerves on the way to Cunningham’s, his thumb drawing a rough circle across the top of Sophie’s hand as he drove.
I’d let her have the front seat and resigned myself to the back, perfectly content to watch the way she loved him.
It was a wild chain of events that had gotten us to that moment, from the first night I met Finn, back when he was still wrapped up with a couple who didn’t appreciate him, to the bedraggled way he showed up on our porch for the first time, to now.
To this night, this moment, when the three of us were in love and he was driving us across town to meet his family.
For years, Finn had a standing Friday night dinner date with his brothers, but as all of the brothers had recently found themselves in relationships, they’d made the decision this Friday should be an exception to the rule.
The restaurant was loud and busy when we arrived, and the hostess met Finn with a fresh Manhattan and waved the three of us to a private dining room in the back.
I didn’t miss the scathing look Sophie shot at me when the hostess passed Finn his drink. Her jealousy was adorable.
There were two brothers present when we arrived.
Marshall, I recognized from earlier in the week at the office.
He stood protectively beside a much younger man I assumed to be his secret fiancé.
There wasn’t a ring on either of their fingers, but there wasn’t a ring on Finn’s finger either so that didn’t mean much.
In the middle of the room was a table set for ten, but nobody had taken their seats yet.
“Can’t believe you beat me here,” Finn said to the man I assumed to be another of his brothers. They didn’t look similar at all, the man broad to Finn’s lanky build.
“Lincoln and Silas had already made plans for themselves, and I’m told we ruined things by inviting them to dinner,” the brother said.
I grabbed Sophie’s hand and glanced at the fourth man in the room, the one who must be Lincoln.
“Hunter.” Finn gestured toward me and Sophie, half a pace behind him. “This is Daniel and Sophie. This is my brother, Hunter.”
I shook Hunter’s hand, noticing the way his mouth twitched as he released my hand to greet Sophie.
While we said hello, Lincoln sidestepped around us and flung his arms around Finn’s neck, whispering something into his ear.
Finn nodded and gently returned the embrace, his cheeks flushing when Lincoln kissed his cheek less than an inch from his mouth.
“It looks good on you,” I heard Lincoln say before his attention was on me and Sophie.
I understood quickly everything Finn had told me about Lincoln. He was a tidal wave, for sure, foregoing handshakes to wrap Sophie and me both up in hugs as familiar as the one he offered Finn.
“It’s so good to meet you,” he said, and I believed him. “This is Silas.”
Silas was next, then, and we exchanged a brief nod with Marshall, and then there were more people in the room.
Finn’s youngest brother, Smith, who didn’t look much older than Silas, and the long-haired, tattooed man on his arm I later learned was named Riggs.
He was by far the quietest of the bunch, like he wasn’t sure how to act once the four Covington brothers got together, and I didn’t blame him.
“You really see the resemblance once they’re all in the same room,” Riggs said to me, scratching the side of his nose while we both hung back. Sophie stayed close to Finn, which I didn’t mind, but she lost herself quickly to a conversation with Silas.
“They’re more alike than they realize, I think.”
Riggs nodded, tapping his fingernail against the neck of his beer bottle.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “You and her both?”
“Yeah.”
Riggs nodded. “Happy?”
“Very.”
“Good.”
I cleared my throat. “Are you?”
He looked at me, then searched out Smith and smiled, any tension he’d been carrying rolling right off of him. “Very.”
“Good.”
I watched Finn’s stare leave Hunter and drift around the room until he found Sophie, and then until he found me. He looked from me to Riggs and back, crooking his finger to invite me over.
“I’m needed, apparently,” I said.
“I’m sure you are.”
Riggs moved to join Silas, Smith, and Sophie, and I closed the space between myself and Finn. He was talking with Hunter, who kissed Lincoln on the top of the head and sent him off upon my arrival.
“Am I interrupting?” I asked.
Hunter laughed, swatting at Lincoln’s ass as he headed for Silas.
“God, no, he was bored of me.”
Finn grabbed my hand, his palm sweaty against mine. He might have looked calm and collected on the outside, but his nerves were clearly still in place.
“Oh,” Hunter said next, looking over my head toward the exit. “He actually came.”
Finn and I both turned to find a man in the doorway, unaccompanied. He was almost as tall as Finn, but his features were as ambiguous as the other four. I had no doubt he was a Covington in some way, even though he was clearly not part of the family.
“Andrew,” Finn whispered into my ear. “We just found him recently. He lives in San Diego.”
Andrew made a quick round of the room, saying hello to the brothers and the boyfriends like it was his first time in the group.
That made me feel a little better, knowing I wasn’t the only one mowed over being surrounded by all of them.
Sophie handled social situations like a champ and laughed at something someone said, and everyone laughed with her. She was fine.
She was perfect.
When Andrew reached us, Finn was the first—and only—brother to hug him instead of giving him a handshake. After they broke apart, Andrew’s stare drifted down in time to watch Finn grasp my hand again.
“Smith said Sophie was your girlfriend,” Andrew said to Finn.
“And his fiancé,” Finn said, giving my hand a squeeze.
The gears turned, and Andrew forced a smile that gave me the impression he wasn’t quite okay with the setup, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it either.
“Good, then?”
“Better than.”
Andrew nodded. “I’m seeing someone too. It’s new, but…”
Finn’s smile grew wide at the confession. Even Hunter looked interested.
“Are you now?”
“It’s new.”
From behind us, Marshall cleared his throat and ushered everyone to their seats.
Sophie ended up to Finn’s left and me to his right, and Andrew ended up beside me in the tenth chair.
Once everyone was seated, the conversation was quick to resume, and I settled my hand on Finn’s thigh before turning to his brother.
“Do you like San Diego?” I asked, hoping I could small talk him into thinking better of our situation, though I also wasn’t sure why I cared what he thought about our relationship.
Andrew might be the first person to publicly question the three of us, but he would be far from the last. Another elephant we needed to discuss at some point, but not then.
It was Friday night, dinner with his brothers, and then a trip to Rapture that had the hair on my arms permanently raised.
“You can’t beat the weather,” he said.
“It’s pretty great most of the year,” I agreed. “But I haven’t been down since Sophie moved.”
Andrew nodded slowly, taking a drink of his beer. “How long have you been together for?”
“Me and Sophie? Or the three of us?”
“Either.”
“Sophie and I have been together eight years,” I said. “We’ve been with Finn a couple of months now.”
“And you’re engaged?”
I smiled at him, not feeling it. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a lot like Marshall?”
That seemed to shock him, and Andrew reeled back, holding up his hands in surrender. “Point taken.”
“We’re good to him,” I said.
As if on cue, Finn turned, brushed a kiss against my temple, then angled himself back into whatever conversation he and Sophie were having with Smith and Lincoln.
“Point taken,” Andrew said again. “I’m sorry, I’m just…I’m new to them and to all of this.”
He finished his drink and set the empty beer bottle on the table.
Both of us looked at the rest of the table, all the brothers and their boyfriends, Sophie there, and me.
The stories Finn had told me about how they all came to be together were horrible, but there was an undeniable amount of love between them and it was obvious even to a stranger.
It felt selfish to say things had maybe worked out for the best, but I didn’t need to ask to know none of them could imagine their lives any differently.
“Sometimes, I…” Andrew’s voice was quiet. “I wonder what it would have been like if I’d grown up with them.”
“I was just imagining what their lives would be like if that hadn’t happened,” I admitted.
“I had a good life, a good…my mom was a good woman. She passed recently. That’s how I found out about my father and the rest of them.”
“That was probably a lot to unpack,” I said.
“It was. Still is. They’re a tight unit, and it’s hard to break through.”
“I think these things just take time, yeah?”
Andrew frowned but nodded.
“Here,” I said, sliding my chair back. I moved around Finn and settled my hands on Sophie’s shoulders, kissing the top of her head before pulling her chair back. “I don’t mean to be rude.”
She crinkled her eyes and stood, taking her drink with her as I walked her to Finn’s other side and ushered Andrew into the spot she’d vacated.
Sophie was nearer the middle of the table, within conversation range of each Covington, and I had a feeling that was exactly where Andrew needed to be.
I put her in my seat and took the one on the far edge of the table, ready to sit back and watch the conversation flow.
But Marshall was across from me now, his expression wary, but curious.
“I think I owe you an apology,” I told him, which earned a shocked raise of his eyebrows.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Why would you owe me anything?”
Marshall looked at Finn quickly, a flash of some emotion on his face I didn’t have time to make sense of. As fast as it appeared, it was gone, and his attention was back on me.
“I passed some unfair judgments on you and your future wife,” he said.
“Well, you walked in on us in a very compromising position.”
“I meant before then.”
“Sounds like those were judgments you passed on your brother more than us,” I countered.
Marshall bobbed his head from side to side, almost a disagreement but not quite.
“I’m an adult. I can handle a stranger’s wrong opinion,” I told him.
“But we’re…not going to be strangers forever, right?” Marshall reached over and took Silas’s hand in his beneath the table. The younger man smiled immediately, looking up at the eldest Covington with hearts in his eyes. “You’re invested in him, yes?”
Silas gave a small nod and returned to his conversation, and Marshall’s heavy stare was back on me.
He had a quiet sort of confidence about him that made me immediately understand how he’d seen so much success in the professional field, but also in life.
There was never a world where Marshall wouldn’t be the patriarch of a family, even if he hadn’t known it the whole time.
“I like that word. Invested. And yes, I am.” My cheeks flushed for no reason at all. “We are.”
“I’m glad. He deserves that.”
“So does she.”
Marshall’s eyes softened around the corners. “Do you?” he asked.
“I hope so. I try.”
He nodded, some unspoken stamp of approval.
“I think yes, then.” Marshall took a deep breath and grabbed his knife, tapping it against the rim of his wine glass. The sound echoed over the conversation until the chatter died down into a lull, and then silence.
Finn tapped his fingers against the outside of my thigh and I pinched his fingertips, sliding my chair closer so he had easier access to touch me.
Marshall and Silas exchanged another wordless conversation and then Marshall was on his feet, a nervous expression on his face for the first time all night.
“I’m so glad you’re all here,” he said. “So glad we’re together.”
Hunter raised his glass to signal a toast, but Marshall waved him down.
“Not yet. Soon, but—” He paused, taking stock of every person at the table before he spoke again. I didn’t know much about Marshall beyond what Finn had told me and my own brief conversation with him, but I knew it was out of character for him to be unsure of anything.
The brothers all picked up on it too, sharing awkward glances with each other before Finn broke the ice.
“Are you dying, Marsh?” Finn teased. “Do we have another brother?”
Everyone laughed, and Hunter swore under his breath, “Probably.”
“No,” Marshall promised, offering Finn a grateful look. “It’s just that Silas and I…we’re getting married.”